I’ll explain this as quick as I can. Basically the bourgeoisie that own the major studios are so obsessed with profit that they make blatantly unsustainable decisions like overmonetization and shipping unfinished games every few years. Now look what’s happening, the studios have no choice but to lay off employees to recoup the costs they inflicted upon themselves and the worst affected are the fired employees naturally.
This is honestly infuriating and insulting as someone who’s been a massive video game fan since 2019 because the franchises I took a liking to (especially Halo) had countless labor and talent (stretching decades in some cases) have been completely gone to waste publishing cookie cutter generic dogshit games for the c suite’s next payday.
Indies are no better. They also suffer from the problem of shipping unfinished games but unlike their AAA counterparts, they suffer from genuine lack of time and resources to deliver games in a timely manner. So the whole “go indie” is basically lesser evil.
Come to think of it Capitalism actually enables and rewards such incompetence as long as profits are high.
I’m not seeking to make any point about MTX or game ownership. I’m seeking to respond to OP’s central point about current layoffs as an example of capitalism ruining games. MTX is far from the majority of revenue, though. People don’t even play the games they buy, let alone buy MTX at an average rate which exceeds the license cost.
I’m assigning some blame to capitalism in my sentence, the one you quoted. I’m saying the regulatory failure is the mechanism by which the crux of the issue, the option to lay off without cause, is enabled. The specific failure I mean is the failure to require employers to have a good reason to end the work contracts they offer. It is fair to lay someone off for a good reason. It is fair to make their position redundant under macroeconomic circumstances like described in the Business article, if the employees are paid out. These statements are true under many kinds of organisation of government. But similarly under any organisation, including a capitalist one, it is not fair to broadly lay people off without cause where the positions are not redundant; rather the associated payroll expense is temporarily inconvenient, or not preferable to the similarly temporary and unrealised shareholder profits. In the case of a capitalist organisation, it’s because it’s not good for sustainable ongoing business, due to the compromise on future production. These are austerity measures enacted without conditions of austerity. The measures themselves will induce austerity in those businesses. That is antithetical to capitalism. And it is something that can be legislated against today for the protection of the employees against becoming collateral damage, without having to compel the people into revolutionary action. It is the position already held by the majority currently. It is already the status quo in the capitalist world outside America. Or is your position that only America is truly capitalist?
What I’m advocating for is direct action, over using shaky reasoning to try to compel revolutionary action. Because if your own goals are achievable within the framework of capitalism, why would the average person revolt? That’s what I’m telling you is the case. Indeed it isn’t only achievable, it is achieved. I am anti capitalist because my goals are not achievable in a capitalist framework. If directing my actions most productively within the framework in which I exist makes me a liberal, tell me your plan for direct action on this issue and I’ll be happy to consider it on its merits.